See also:

• NOUMENON (Gr. voouµevov, a thing known, from voeiv)

NOUMENON (Gr. voouµevov, a thing known, from voeiv)  , a philosophical See also:

• TERM

term put into currency by See also:

• KANT, IMMANUEL (1724-1804)

Kant and not much used except in definite reference to his See also:

• DOCTRINE

doctrine . In the Kantian See also:

• SYSTEM

system the term " noumena " means things-in-themselves as opposed to " phenomena " or things as they appear to us . According to Kant the human mind is such that it can never penetrate by its speculative See also:

• POWERS, HIRAM (1805-1873)

powers to things-in-themselves, but can only know phenomena . Thus we have the See also:

• ODD (in middle English odde, from old Norwegian oddi, an angle of a triangle; the old Norwegian oddamann is used of the third man who gives a casting vote in a dispute)

odd position that noumena, or the contents of the intelligible See also:

• WORLD

world, are just the things to which thought can never penetrate . The term, however, is a relic of an See also:

• EARLY
• EARLY, JUBAL ANDERSON (1816-1894)

early See also:

• PERIOD
• PERIOD (Gr. irepioSos, a going or way round, circuit, aepi, round, and &Sis, way, road)

period of Kant's See also:

• MENTAL

mental development . In his fully mature or See also:

• CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

critical position he held that the noumenal world was inaccessible to the speculative See also:

• REASON (Lat. ratio, through French raison)

reason, and yet that we are not altogether excluded from it, since the See also:

• PRACTICAL

practical reason, i.e. our capacity for acting as moral agents, assures us of the existence of a noumenal world wherein freedom, See also:

• GOD

God and See also:

• IMMORTALITY (Lat. in-, not, mortalis, mortal, from mors, death)

immortality have a real See also:

• PLACE (through Fr. from Lat. platea, street; Gr. IrAar6s, wide)

place . The relation of noumena to phenomena in the Kantian system is a most difficult one; and, in view of the fact that the acutest intellects of See also:

• EUROPE

Europe have been engaged vainly for more than a See also:

• CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

century in reconciling the various passages on the subject, the safest conclusion is that they are irreconcilable . The course adopted by Kant's immediate successors in See also:

• GERMAN
• GERMAN, DUTCH AND SCANDINAVIAN

German See also:

• IDEALISM (from Gr. i5Ea, archetype or model, through been urged of the truth of its point of view is the persistency Fr. idealisme)

idealism was to reject the whole conception of noumena, for the reason that what is essentially unknowable has no existence for our intelligence . Kant, however, protested strongly against this development when it was propounded by See also:

• FICHTE, IMMANUEL HERMANN (originally HARTMANN) VON (1797-1879)
• FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB (1762-1814)

Fichte, and held that he had precluded it by his " refutation of idealism": he stood unshakably to the belief in an absolutely real world behind phenomena . Kant's position may be illogical as he himself stated it; but it is the expression of a See also:

• SOUND
• SOUND, THE (Danish Oresund)

sound principle: we must connect it with his See also:

• GENERAL
• GENERAL (Lat. generalis, of or relating to a genus, kind or class)

general tendency to recognize the dynamic See also:

• SIDE
• SIDE (mod. Eski Adalia)

side of things . He saw, what so many of his successors failed to see, that the world as we know it is an expression of See also:

• POWER [WILLIAM GRATTAN] TYRONE (1797-1841)

power; and he could not imagine whence the power could come if not from a world beyond phenomena . (See KANT; PHENOMENON.) (H .